


Needle and Pin

by Gilded_Pleasure



Series: Within These Walls [4]
Category: Elementary (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: A Controlled Descent, Angst, Brief Violence, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, F/M, Gen, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Graphic description of drug use, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Joanlock - Freeform, Post-Finale, Relapse, Relapse and Recovery, Spoilers, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 09:29:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4014571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gilded_Pleasure/pseuds/Gilded_Pleasure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set After 3 x 24: A Controlled Descent<br/>Sherlock has been on the roof for three days, with a metal box in his pocket that reassures him he's right where he belongs. There's time yet before he confronts what happened, because it hasn't stopped happening yet. Why not watch his own descent from here, where everything is lovely and nothing can hurt him? Just a bit longer; there's still time.<br/>Until there isn't.</p>
<p>[this is part of a series but can be read alone as a post-finale fic]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Needle and Pin

_Not yet._

Sherlock stared unseeing at the skyline, deciding again to put it off just a little longer. Just a bit.

His limbs were deliciously leaden; the best restraint system that he knew of had him safely straitjacketed from the inside. He heard the door to the roof slam after Joan had already begun to speak to him. The bees hummed, but he barely registered their presence over the dull roar of opiates in his blood.

_Just a bit longer._

His fingers wrapped around the metal box in his pocket, so tightly it should have hurt. Everything should have hurt, but it didn't. Nothing could hurt him at all. Simple thoughts arced through his brain, and their unparalleled clarity would have moved him to tears if the wired-clay form his mind currently occupied had been capable of such expressive gestures.

The meaning of Joan's words hit him in droplets some time after she spoke them.

“There's something you need to know. Your father called.”

Remarkable.

“I don't know how, but he found out about what happened.”

The old goat must've been slipping. It had taken him so long to find out? Sherlock admitted to himself he'd lost track of time; Joan had said three days. Not such a very long time, not nearly enough for what was happening to become _happened_ , as Joan had so tactfully put it.

It hadn't yet happened because it was still happening.

It did not have to be acknowledged it until it had stopped, and that could be put off just a bit longer.

“He's getting on a plane. He's gonna be here tomorrow.”

Sherlock mentally kicked at the insensate boulder in his head that consisted of what had happened (was happening), measured its weight, it girth, its solidity and its inevitability. He kicked it again, reveling in the inert sensation as had reveled in kicking Oscar into a corpse. But he hadn't succeeded, had he? No; Joan had made her terse report some time ago, as the sun had coasted its way across the sky for the second time. The sac around the vile addict's infected heart had failed to burst and flood his system with its poison. Somewhere out there, a veteran junky clung to his wretched, useless life in some sterile ward among the sparkling lights of the city. He focused on a singular pinpoint on the skyline, so distant it was barely perceptible, and willed it to wink out with all his might.

Perhaps his most recent and rather valiant attempt to become a murderer would contradict the handsomely matched string of failures that characterized his existence, and that burden could be added easily to the boulder in his head. Make it just a bit heavier. Too heavy to ever be picked up again, and wouldn't that be a relief. He could finally pass the final judgement on himself and end it; he could rest assured that some things, you just don't come back from.

Joan sighed heavily, and Sherlock's fingers twitched involuntarily in surprise. Dual concerns hit him; that she had not on fact gone back downstairs as he had thought, and that his capacity for a startle response meant his last shot was beginning to wear off.

“Why _now_ , Sherlock? Why did it have to be now?”

He listened to her seat herself on the small, bare table beside him, where she had brought meals to his perch and taken them away again, untouched. Her hands were in the pockets of her coat, and the tension in her shoulders betrayed what she held clenched in her left fist. _Ahhh._ So, it had come to that, then. He'd wondered when Watson would finally tip her hand.

Even now, he knew she wouldn't be able to get the better of him; physically at least. He wished she would just leave instead, leave him to this. It would be the worst punishment by far, and the one he most richly deserved.

He regarded his own roiling self-loathing with detached interest and equanimity equal to that with which he regarded the distant light, which remained stubbornly steady as he gazed at it. The magic of heroin was that it could make such idle practices as sitting in a chair on his roof as fascinating as the most stubborn of cold cases, the most complex of puzzles. In all these tedious years of meticulously maintained sobriety, he hadn't forgotten for a single moment this unparalleled stillness.

To be peacefully cradled by the world around him instead of staggering under its constant assault, crushed under the dull routine of his own existence. Oscar's words about _where he belonged_ paled in comparison to the tangible _sensation_ of belonging that the contents of Oscar's tin brought him. It sweetly and starkly contrasted his accustomed sensation of being a sliver of foreign material embedded in the universe, being slowly and painfully rejected by its healing flesh, resulting in tears and blood until his inevitable and final exit.

A faint twinge in his chest accompanied the visceral metaphor, and he felt his fingers twitch again, becoming alarmingly sensate. The ghost of heat touched his face as he recognized the beginnings of narcotic-damped rage. A familiar irritability that would build as the time since his last fix lengthened. Why was Watson here, why wouldn't she leave him to the peace he'd thrown away everything, including and especially himself, to achieve? Oh. The naloxone in her pocket. She thought to make him kick the hard way, before it got any worse. Perhaps she'd hoped to catch him on he nod, or wait him out until he was forced to use under her watchful eye, swooping into the resultant lull.

_Not yet. Just a bit longer._

Hi throat flexed painfully as he attempted to speak, possibly for the first time in days. A short croak came out, then he managed to rasp, “You must be pleased.”

An indrawn breath. “I know better than to expect anything reasonable from you right now,” she replied in a small voice that nonetheless had iron behind it.

“My dear Watson,” he whispered hollowly as he kept his gaze on the distant light, “Can it be that I have failed...” he coughed a mirthless imitation of a laugh, “as I have failed in all things, to provide you sufficient diversion with my paroxysms of ecstasy and agony? My debasement and humiliation, spiked here like an entomological specimen for your viewing pleasure?”

“I know it was too much for you this time. I get that. You can still come back from this, and I still believe in you. You...you're _better_ than this, and you know it.”

That last was sharp enough to induce another twinge. How unfortunate.

“You and Father will find yourselves quite in agreement on that account,” he replied tersely. “And yet, you both will discover that my capacity to disappoint you remains quite bottomless.”

“What did Oscar say to you?”

“You haven't deduced it for yourself?”

She didn't flinch.

“Did he force you use?”

Her willful blindness to the obvious enraged him, and he found his capacity for wrath was increasing by the moment. She _did_ intend to wait him out, then. His own flat voice rasped in his ears, yet the words seemed drawn out of him, slowly and inexorably, where for days they had remained lodged in his throat like dry, dead bones.

"You really think anyone could _compel_ this of me? As if it would be necessary? Despite all I have said on the topic, you still maintain that there must be some grand drama, some unspeakable coercion involved in my _fall_. Only a nefarious plot could bring about my abrupt removal from the pedestal you insist that I occupy; _you_ , who have borne witness to this facile and cliched process time and again. It is simplicity itself, so absurdly simple that an explanation is superfluous.”

He found himself breathing heavily. “Did you not see it in Liam, or among the illustrious company of your former sober clients? Am I some inhuman paragon to you, unmarred by base temptation? Are you so blind to my flaws, or somehow still dazzled like a schoolgirl by what you deem my successes? Was I fool enough to believe that _you knew me_?” he finished with a hiss, then fell to coughing.

“I wanted to get high,” he whispered dryly, head leaned back as he gazed dully at the distant, twinkling lights. “What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? Addiction is a neurobiological science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid. And if anyone should know better, it's _you._ Now, if you have wallowed in my degradation to your satisfaction, please be so kind to as leave me to its inevitable denouement,” he finished bitterly through his opiate-flattened affect.

He felt his toes begin to dance inside his shoes with the desire to cook up, and his hand tightened on the metal box again. Now he could feel the pain of it digging into his fingers. If Watson hadn't been here, he would have thrilled himself with drawing it out, the sense of controlled anticipation filling him as he put off the moment of satisfaction, knowing he held the answer to his burgeoning desire in his hands. Playacting self-denial and control provided their own rush when both were well and truly lost to him. But her disappointed gaze and the threat in her pocket had soured it, made it into an annoyance and a distraction.

He saw her shoulders tighten again, and he tensed himself to act when she made her move. But to his utter bafflement, the hand that emerged from Watson's pocket was her right. She stood as she did so, and wordlessly placed a small, metal oblong on the table she'd been sitting on a moment before. He surprised himself with a stirring of interest beyond the passive fascination which pervaded everything when he was high; a feeling of focus attempted to form itself from the addled mess he'd made of his mental faculties.

She regarded him carefully as his left hand crept toward it, almost of its own accord, and she spoke as he examined the scuffed and dented pocketwatch.

“Addiction is a pathological and morbid process, which involves changes to neural pathways and may permanently impair the limbic system. The changes can result in depression, mood swings, and ahedonia. I know what _addiction_ is, Sherlock, and I know better than anyone that you're an addict. I'm not _romanticizing_ anything by reminding you that you're more than your disease, and fuck _you_ for saying all that.”

She took a deep breath as he fondled the watch, which was slowly revealing its secrets to him, and a cold feeling that had surprisingly little to do with physical cravings began to settle around his heart. In fact, a small certainty was growing that his current compulsive desires were entirely psychological, despite his best efforts of the last three days to complete his descent. The insult to his injury only whetted his appetite for another hit.

She continued, “You're not high enough to forget that I was a doctor; a _surgeon_. My blood runs colder than yours does,” she almost hissed. “If you haven't already destroyed yourself with this, if you have anything left that isn't devoted to your own self-serving...if you have a shred of ego left, then tell me. _Whose watch is that_?”

Sherlock's hands clenched painfully; one around the metal box, the other around the watch he was doing his best to will out of existence. But its message continued to shine on, just as the light had.

“It belongs to your father,” he exhaled in distant horror.

Her posture betrayed a kind of tension he had rarely seen in her, and couldn't place at the moment.

“Where did I get it?” she challenged.

His eyes darted to the tiny shred of bright yellow, the remains of a price tag that had been scraped hurriedly away.

“A pawnshop,” he choked.

“Would he ever willingly part with it?”

He analyzed the inscription, noted the patterns of wear on its rim, its delicate knobs.

“Not likely,” he whispered. “It was a gift from his estranged daughter.”

He saw her scrub her hand across her forehead in his peripheral vision.

“I don't need to be _distracted_ , Sherlock. I've been expecting something like this for a...for a long time, and I'm not in a rush to find out for sure. But I do need to deal with it eventually, and _you_ need to deal with...” she indicated him with a wave of her hand, “...this, right now. If Alfredo was here, he'd tell you to get over yourself, but he's not. So I'm saying it. Get it over with and go back to doing what you've been doing for the last three years. Don't turn a lapse into a full-blown _re_ lapse just because you can't wrap your mind around anything but black and white, all or nothing. No one but _you_ can stop you from using, but for god's sake, not everything that has a dent in it needs to be thrown out or burned down.”

He slowly put the watch back on the table, the pieces falling into their scattered places in his crooked mind.

_There isn't any more time left, after all._

His other hand emerged from its pocket, fingers white-knuckled around the metal box containing Oscar's former works. Joan held her hand out for it beseechingly, but despite his best intentions, Sherlock found himself placing it in his own lap instead, holding it there under his thumb as he unzipped his hoodie and shrugged an arm out of it. She gave a low, bitter, _tss_ as he opened the box, and withdrew her disappointed hand.

One side was crammed with disposable syringes and needles in sterile packaging, which he imagined Oscar had hoped would assuage any ambivalence on Sherlock's part about contracting hepatitis or worse from his dirty works. It was a surprisingly classy setup.

He ran his fingers hungrily over the spoon and disposable lighter, the wads of sterile-wrapped cotton, the thin and flexible leather tourniquet coiled like a snail on one corner. He pulled the small bottle of water (he had not drunk from it, no matter how dry his mouth became) from his pocket as well. The packets of flecked whitish powder, nearly but not _quite_ pure diamorphine; he'd mouthed the first packet in the tunnel to confirm its contents, its sharp vinegar tang promising the oblivion he'd denied himself for so long. He took out two....made it three bags. It seemed appropriate.

“Sherlock,” Watson said in alarm, clutching inside her pocket. “I won't let you...that's not going to happen.”

“You can't very well stop me, even now,” he slurred. “And it would appear that I cannot stop myself.”

He looked up at her finally, suddenly aware of how his skin crawled with filth, his greasy hair and the dirt ground down to the scalp. He met her eyes with a piercing stare as he divulged, “But I won't be able to fight you when you take it away. Which I shall ensure by doing exactly as I desire to be doing.”

She looked sickened as she absorbed that, before pleading, “Why are you doing this? You might not even get sick if you just stop now. Three days isn't that long, but if you pull this...stunt? You'll be sick into tomorrow, maybe longer, and you don't...you don't have to be. Your father is going to be here...”

Sherlock exhaled with dull amusement.

“He never saw any of this, or its aftermath, you know. Merely bankrolled from afar, as is his wont. If he can be bothered to show his face here, he is owed a proper show of it.”

“Don't do this, Sherlock.”

“I have every confidence in you, Watson. You will of course know that once you've administered the naloxone to stay well away for a moment or two.”

He stared pointedly at the hand inside her pocket, then immersed himself in the most sacred and profane ritual he knew.

He glided two fingers sensually over the crook of his elbow, eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks, most of them only to be read like braille through his fingertips. One of the new marks he'd made in the last several days had already become red and puffy, his relative filth eventually defeating his relative health.

None of the fresh wounds could hold a candle to the ones that had scarred him during the last year before his stay in rehab. He'd noted years previous that Watson had become more observant only after a few weeks in his company, and he found himself unusually self-conscious in her bustling, competent presence. He'd taken the opportunity to slide in under the wire of her increasing visual acuity and brought out his tattoo kit to touch up the gouges in his forearms the healing tracks had left. He'd coaxed the knots of scar tissue to accept the ink with all the skill he had, making it a difference only of texture rather than the satiny whitish spots swirled into the heavy blackwork, where slow-simmering infections had blown out the subcutaneous color.

His veins had more than recovered from his previous abuses of them, and now he needn't resort to the tributaries that ran under his tattoos. He set the spoon on the lid of the tin to pour out some water from the small, squat bottle, then began emptying the packets into it. He couldn't resist putting one of the empties in his mouth, tonguing the bitter powder out of its crackling crevices as he briefly regretted the shame this moment would bring him later, if he remembered it. He was glad on that account he'd added the third packet as he tapped the powder still floating on top gently with a capped needle to coax it into solubility. One last ritual of indulgence, with an equivalent purge to appease his perverse sense of symmetrical extremes.

Sometimes, the only way to wrest back self-control was to give it up completely. A controlled descent had more survivability than a crash. He hoped to fall limply, rather than bracing for impact and shattering out what was left of his life by anticipating the pain of it; not the pain of death, but the pain and the drudgery of continuing on.

He picked up the spoon and flicked the lighter on beneath it, eyelids fluttering with lust as the scent of it hit his nostrils. They did not flutter enough to obscure Watson's expression, which entirely reinforced his earlier sensation of appearing a freshly pinned insect, her disgust warring with fascination as he squirmed.

“You've never seen this before,” he croaked, unable to stop himself from sharing his observations of and with her, even now. “Not just me; anyone at all.” The habit had become ingrained, involuntary. “I admit my surprise, considering at least one of your former careers.”

“I've already seen more than I want to of what happens after,” she whispered. “And I can recognize a hot shot when I see one.”

“It is a possibility,” he allowed. “It is not the outcome I intend. Nevertheless, it is a necessary risk.”

He set the spoon down and quickly plucked a bit of cotton from its wad and placed it in the cooked heroin; he watched it soak up the amber liquid avidly. His hands assembled the syringe quickly with practiced motions, uncapped the needle to slowly draw up the shot.

Once he had, he capped the syringe again and set it in his lap, then reassembled the box and its contents excepting the leather tourniquet, which he lay across his knees. Watson darted in suddenly toward the the works in his lap, and his arm shot out of its own accord to slap her reaching hand away with bruising sharpness.

“Not _yet_ , I've _told you,_ ” he growled in an unrecognizable voice, then pulled in a shuddering breath through flared nostrils.

The box was back in his pocket, and he had the shot and the leather strap clenched in other fist; with every ounce of his remaining will he uncurled his fingers and instead took out the water bottle. He met Watson's eyes as he unscrewed the cap and thirstily drank what remained, before tossing it casually somewhere behind him. His skin crawled with self-hatred as he closed the box and grunted, “I once made reference to a certain fellow you never met. Sherlock Holmes, practicing intravenous heroin abuser; lovely to make your acquaintance.”

He was nowhere near sober, but he was far more lucid than he wanted to be. It was becoming intolerable. With another practiced motion, he wound the long leather strip around his upper arm and made squeezing motions with his fist, a physical reassurance that the hit was coming. He pulled the end of it up toward his mouth, but paused a moment to look up at Joan.

“Show me,” he said tersely, frowning up into her carefully blank face and soft, hurt eyes.

She hesitated, then her left hand came up holding no fewer than five single-use injectors stacked between her thumb and fingers, and he raised his eyebrow. “I'm flattered by your estimation,” he muttered, then spoke the rest in a rush, as if to prevent himself from hearing his own words.

“Wait until you're sure I'm out, then take it and get rid of it. Don't bring me up until it's completely gone, and _don't ever_ tell me what you've done with it.” He paused, then finished quickly, “No hospitals. It's beyond unnecessary, and the enforced idleness will ensure nothing other than an encore of our current _drame immense_ ,” before putting the end of the leather strap between his teeth.

Joan stared at him expressionlessly, then replied, “I'll do whatever I see fit.”

He looked back with dull despair in his eyes. “I know you will. I'm counting on it,” he mumbled through his clenched jaw.

Sherlock uncapped the needle and inserted it expertly under the skin at the crook of his elbow. He knew quite well he was in the vein, but still allowed himself the anticipatory thrill of watching his dark blood bloom in the barrel. Prudence dictated that he taste the shot a bit at a time to gauge its considerable potency, but he declined to do so.

He had set himself up for quite a fall; all he need do was give it one little push.

Just so.

The high hit him like a fur coat shot out of a cannon, its momentum slumping him sideways in his chair. He barely felt the strap fall from between his teeth as he moaned obscenely; the tourniquet unwound itself and fell away. His glazed and hooded eyes fell bemusedly on the needle where it dangled from his arm. Joan came forward and her expert fingers drew it out, recapped it reflexively and threw the syringe down with a plastic _crack_ before it rolled away. When those hands went to his pocket, however, his fingers wrapped themselves firmly around both her wrists, not injuriously but still as inescapable as a few of the handcuffs from his collection.

“Sherlock, stop it,” she said quietly, trying to pull away.

“Jus' a bit longer,” he slurred. “There...” he hitched a breath and sighed, “there's time yet.”

“Time for what?” she said distractedly, continuing to pull against his grip. Instead of her hands coming free, Sherlock melted out of the chair and onto the ground, slowly but inexorably pulling Joan along with him. Remarkable that her presence had annoyed him mere minutes ago; now he couldn't be happier that the person he loved most in the world was here to share this perfect moment with him.

The entirety of existence was so lovely, all wrapped close and tight around him like his father's ancient fox-furs, the ones he'd crept into the massive, two-room walk-in closet to rub his face against as a child, inhaling their musty fragrance until his lungs ached with it. His father was away, he had been for some time, but he'd be coming home soon. He'd promised, and Sherlock would wait right here until he returned.

“Mmmn,” he moaned, blinking stupidly at Joan, who knelt awkwardly beside him, still trying to break his grasp. “Wait,” he clarified. The fur clung to his nose and mouth, making it hard to breathe. He pulled her hands toward his lips, cupped them against his face as his eyes began to slip closed.

“If you love me, wait until my lips turn blue,” he whispered into her palms. Warm rain on his hands finally dissolved their grip, and he felt a rummaging in his pockets. Then he let it all go, and the darkness finally claimed him.

\- - -

The next thing Sherlock heard was the screaming. It hurt his ears and seemed to pierce right through his skull, and it wasn't til he tried telling whoever it was to shut their vile gob that he realized the intolerable noise originated from his own corded throat. He was on his elbows and knees, his forehead grinding against the floor (the roof) and he clenched his jaw shut to cut the sound off, sobbing hysterical breaths through his teeth, snot huffing from his running nose.

A depressingly small puddle of vomit that was unmistakably his lay near his right elbow, and he fell to his side in an attempt to roll away from it. Although he hadn't recalled the acute discomfort of having an all-consuming opiate fog snatched away so well or as dearly as the high, it wasn't the first time. This experience was not nearly so bad as having it done in a hallway stretcher after being thrown, unresponsive and without breath, from a moving car onto the pavement outside the A&E. He'd been told later that he'd punched the nurse, and dislocated his own elbow.

His streaming eyes finally fell on Watson who stood watching him from at least five feet away, gauging whether or not he was approachable yet. The arm over his head was still enclosed in a sleeve, but the other lay long and bare, tacky with drying streaks of blood that had flowed from the puncture. His inebriated wrestling had not been very conducive to clotting, and Watson glanced at him furtively, her hands twitching with the desire to staunch the haemorrhage.

The veritable tsunami of shame and self-loathing he'd been keeping at arm's length for days hit him at once, as he realized it had been years since the A&E, and that his most recent failure had also been a betrayal. Of himself, and everyone who cared for him. He weakly pulled his shaking, clothed arm over his face to muffle the raw keen of grief that was torn from his throat.

He wiped at his eyes and running nose, then gazed at Joan's shoes as he asked shakily, “It's gone?”

He kept his eyes on them as she wordlessly approached, then knelt down to look him over carefully. Pulse, pupils, the arm, and then she helped him to sit and she finished removing his sweatshirt. He shuddered violently, then whispered, “I'd like a shower. If possible.”

As it turned out, the best he could manage after the stairs was sitting in the tub with the shower turned on, watching the collected filth of the last few days and a few swirls of crusted blood sluice from his abused corpus and down the drain. After a cursory shampoo and soaping, he clambered out of the tub onto a towel laid out to catch errant splashes. Watson, who had overseen the entire humiliating process perched on the toilet lid, handed a second one over to him that he drew over his head as he shuddered, then stilled. He peered out from under the hood he'd made of the towel at Joan, who stared at the wall opposite, looking tired, small and sad.

“Have you...slept?” he asked hoarsely, and her head snapped around to peer at him under the towel.

An unreadable expression fixed itself onto her face as she replied evenly, “You don't get to ask me that right now.”

He wiped away a tear that he assigned to increased lacrimal production, a lesser symptom of what could be mild withdrawal. Shame burned him to the core; she'd been right, this was a droplet next to the ocean of agony he'd been in the first time he'd gone through this in Hemdale. In fact, he felt considerably better than he had when he initially crawled out of the tub. He leaned against the side of it, sighed heavily, then realized with a creeping and increasingly distant panic that the shot of naloxone was wearing off as he slid the rest of the way to the floor.

“Sherlock?” Joan asked worriedly, pulling off the towel and thumbing open his eyelid. “It's coming back, isn't it?”

He wanted to deny it. Even now, he would have blissfully sank back beneath the waves of rising comfort, reveled in the retreat of pain. Another tear leaked out from under his eyelid as Joan stood and quickly administered another dose to his upper arm. He gasped mightily, thrashed and groaned as the nausea hit. He made it to the toilet in time before he heaved out a few teaspoonsful of raw bile. Joan continued her vigil as he cleaned his teeth as best he could, and she drew a large glass of water from the bathroom sink as he made his towel-wrapped and shaky way toward the door.

“My room for now,” Joan sighed as she passed him, and he followed her meekly, too shaky to do other than obey simple commands. He sat on the foot of her bed with his head in his hands as she rummaged in her chest of drawers. A soft bundle of fabric hit him in the head, and he almost managed to catch it before it fell to the floor in two parts. It consisted of one of Joan's oversized sleep sets.

“Just put that on for now. I'm not leaving you to get something else, and I don't think you can make it down the stairs yet.”

He donned the loose shirt and shorts shakily after Joan pointedly turned her back, and did his best to flop backwards toward the pillows. His bones ached like he had the flu, but it just as easily could have been from the neglect and abuse he'd put his body through. Joan checked his pupils again before sitting down beside him and opening her laptop.

He peered blearily over at the screen, and saw that she had pulled up some footage she must have requested via the NYPD from a few pawnshops that feared robbery enough to have surveillance. He began, “What-” then snapped his teeth shut and flushed (painfully) when he realized he'd already forgotten about the watch. She didn't respond.

“You don't have to be imprisoned along with me,” he mumbled flatly. “I'll be quite alright on my own, and I'm sure you have other pursuits I've been...distracting you from.”

She didn't look away from the videos as she replied, “Don't even try it, Sherlock.”

“I'm not, I... I won't leave. I'm hardly a flight risk in this state, and it's not as if you spent three days on the roof-”

Her eyes locked onto his with enough cold force to silence him. After a moment, face expressionless, she took her phone from the nightstand and poked at it a moment before turning it so he could see.

A grainy image showed the roof of the brownstone, and his eyes widened as he realized he was looking at a live feed that included the chair he'd occupied for the previous several days in its scope. He swallowed reflexively as he recognized the dark blur of his discarded sweatshirt. Then swallowed again.

Watson gave him a sharp look as he lurched up, and he managed to mumble, “sick,” before staggering back to the bathroom to dry heave painfully. He was sweating and leaning his forehead against cool porcelain when he heard Watson's voice behind him.

“Drink the water I gave you. You'll feel better, even if it's just having something to come up.”

He didn't reply, but after he rinsed his mouth at the sink and staggered back to the bedroom, he picked up the glass and had a few tentative swallows. It seemed to be inclined to remain inside him, so he lay down. He spent the next several hours sniffling and staring at the wall visible between Watson and her laptop, eyes leaking copiously at intervals that had nothing whatsoever to do with Joan's thumb on his eyelids, or her gentle fingers at his throat to check his pulse. He didn't try to speak to her again.

He may have slept a bit, but it didn't stop the endless cycle of self-punishing thoughts and emotions from scouring him to the bone as he lay there. He sincerely wished he had died on the roof, then was hit with another wave of guilt when he considered how that might have impacted Watson. And others, perhaps. Alfredo, at minimum, who he did not wish to think about further at the moment.

It was an inherently selfish wish; he did not want to live from this point forward with Watson having seen him come to such a pass. He'd failed in front of her, he'd failed _her._ The worst bit was that the incessant torture of self-loathing only made him wish he was back on the roof with the box and the needle, pinned in place by his own desire to escape what he was currently going through, and the truths he must face afterward, if there was to _be_ an afterward at all.

\- - -

“Tell me how to make something you'll actually eat.”

Joan faced away, speaking into the open fridge, but she assumed he could hear her. And he could, despite the fact that he had once again lapsed into another of his protracted silences, his thoughts frozen like oddly shaped fruit transfixed in a gelatine mould. Or perhaps more like a stained glass window, flowing imperceptibly over the centuries to become thicker at the bottom. The inherently liquid nature of glass was unable to resist the incessant pull of gravity, its state of uprightness proving itself to be unnatural; unsustainable. Perhaps given long enough, he too would eventually become nothing more than a lead skeleton, his former glories puddling away under the weight of time.

“I can make pasta, and salad,” Joan persisted. “You won't eat either of those, and tomatoes will just give you acid reflux. You can barely stand for five minutes, so _you're_ not making anything, but if you don't eat, you won't be able to stand without passing out.”

_A factually accurate analysis, Watson_ , he thought, and with a herculean effort in response to her insistence, he managed to grunt, “Nnnnh.”

His eyes turned to the massive glass of water, which Watson had filled one-third full and set beside him on the table, in much the same manner as she had set his carcass into the kitchen chair he currently occupied. His hand shook as he took it, and he drank it with a thirst that surprised him. He was grateful to have his legs once again decently covered with a pair of loose trousers, his torso comforted by an old t-shirt retrieved from his own chest of drawers.

Watson had once again turned her back as he changed, and checking it against the pattern of her behaviors he had categorized as largely symbolic, he realized she was choosing to reestablish certain boundaries. He couldn't blame her, although the incongruity of it vexed him slightly nevertheless.

He had finished the glass and moved to set it back on the table, but Watson came over and snatched it from his hand and went to the sink to refill it. As she set it back beside him, halfway full this time, he ran his tongue over his teeth and parted his lips to mutter, “Flour.”

Watson stared a moment, and he winced as the house sparrow that had taken up residence near the front stoop of the brownstone chose that moment to burst out with its piercing contribution to the dawn chorus. At least four am, then. He kept his eyes on the stove knobs as he mumbled, “White sugar. Milk; _butter_ , not margarine.”

_Rhymes with glycerine_ , he thought dully as his tear ducts once again chose an inappropriate moment to send false tears down his face. He wiped them away with impatient fingers, then leaned forward and clarified, “the shallow saucepan; not that one, the copper-bottom,” feeling a bit more in control of his limbs as he watched Joan retrieving the items he listed.

As he watched her perform the actions involved in making a basic white sauce to his specifications, he began to feel a bit more himself. His own words echoed back to him from what seemed a lifetime ago.

_...the experience I'd had with you, the one that had kept me focused and grounded, it could be replicated. I'm a mentor, Watson. I'm...I'm a teacher._

Perhaps this was her attempt to manufacture that sentiment, but he really couldn't blame her if so. He was even more easily manipulated than usual in his current state, and whether this was to be an exercise in grounding or merely an impetus to stir him out of his inertia, he was probably in need of it. If he trusted anyone to manipulate him to his possible benefit, it was Watson.

“Shouldn't this have some kind of flavoring that isn't sugar? I know you're British, but there are limits,” Watson inquired absently, whisking in a bit more flour mixed with cold milk as per his terse instructions.

_Bourbon vanilla, one teaspoon._ Sherlock pressed his lips together as he considered its perpetual absence from his cupboard, reminiscing on how he'd been accustomed to pilfer a teaspoonful from the pantry as a child, fascinated by its sweetish-bitter, burning taste. The row that ensued when his father had smelled his breath later.

“Cardamom,” he said instead, and watched as Watson ran her fingers over the bottles in the lower shelf of the spice cupboard, the unlabeled glass bottles she was less than familiar with.

“To the right; that one's diotomaceous earth.”

She gave him a hard look before shaking in a generous portion from the correct container.

“Cinnamon, at least twice that amount.”

He watched her rummage further back into the cupboard, and his heart lurched in panic as he barked, “ _Not that one_ ,” making her jump. Joan frowned as she slowly brought the container to her nose, and he looked away pointedly to avoid seeing her expression as she smelled the nutmeg. It was his turn to jump as the spice bottle hit the bottom of the bin with a crack.

He sighed shakily, and the rest of the session went off without another hitch. She toasted the bread and poured the sauce over it, although she inquired as she set the dish in front of him, “What... _is_ this, anyway?”

“A rather old-fashioned trifle for the nourishment of young children and invalids,” he replied mysteriously, the internal pleasure he derived from metaphorically eating an insult for breakfast actually lending him the appetite to press his spoon into the still-crisp-at-the-edges toast and bring it to his lips. He swallowed, and continued as she went about preparing a bowl of cereal for herself. “The appropriate sustenance with which to bolster myself for the possibility that my father _may_ actually favor this den of disgrace with his glowering countenance.”

Unfortunately, symbolically supping on insults did not prepare him nearly enough for the moment he actually heard a terrifyingly distinctive knock two hours later.

\- - -

Sherlock squinted painfully into the bar of light that the door Joan had opened sent into his sanctuary, sat midway up the staircase adjacent to the hall. His heart sank into his stomach as _Mister Holmes'_ silhouette came clear; backlit as he was, it was apparent the man had in fact chosen to make this appearance in person rather than sending an assistant.

Head leaned against the wall under the railing, Sherlock darted his eyes at the man from his perch, and was struck viscerally by the confirmation that he had not been mistaken; part of his negative response to Mycroft's transformation from perpetually doughy to shockingly svelte had been how closely he'd come to resemble their father. If Mycroft had been somehow crossbred with an eagle or perhaps a more dead-eyed and merciless raptor, groomed and shaved within an inch of his life. His slightly thinning hair was scraped back with product and his tasteful suit enhanced his considerable height. He positively _loomed_ , and Sherlock let himself be loomed at indifferently.

He and Joan had been exchanging meaningless pleasantries, but they fell silent as Sherlock continued to stare past them blankly. He waiting until he heard his father's intake of breath, and spoke to deliberately abort whatever the old bird of prey had been about to blather at him.

“How long's it been, a decade yet? I can't quite recall.”

He glanced up to see his father's lips press together slightly, and he watched the old goat decide not to be baited. Instead, he remarked coolly, “It appears you've allowed your visa to lapse yet again, but I've had the proper documents prepared. I seem to have left them with one of my assistants in the car, however; if Miss Watson would be so kind as to indulge me and retrieve them for us?”

Sherlock scowled and ground out, “ _Miss Watson_ is not a servant, Father, nor an assistant, and I do not appreciate you ordering her about as if she danced attendance on either of our whims.”

Joan's voice rang with her American accent as she remarked dryly, “ _Miss Watson_ is perfectly happy to provide a father and son with the privacy to catch up, although being asked directly would have been a nice touch.”

He looked up at her, a bit surprised, and her soft smile actually drew its ghost from his lips; he felt bolstered by the fact that she'd scored one on the old goat, regardless of whether she realized it. She turned on her heel and walked out the front door, closing it gently behind her.

Sherlock sighed, and finally looked directly his buzzard of a sire, although he didn't bother with holding up his own head, he just rolled it along the wall insouciantly as he addressed him.

“Were you surprised, I wonder, when you realized the fancy prostitute you'd hired to babysit your dissolute failure of a youngest son turned out to be a former surgeon? Or did it merely confirm your conviction that those of the female persuasion cannot cope emotionally with the rigors of high-stress, decision-making professions?”

He watched his father decide again to ignore that, and said instead, “She's quite American to the core, isn't she, despite her appearance. You should know that I can't stay long, but a few matters must be clarified, first.”

Sherlock shook with impotent rage, and a part of him watched it happen passively, accommodating as much as he could for the storms that shook him in that unbearably supercilious presence. _What does an_ American _look like, Father?_ An unexpected benefit of his still-visceral reaction to his father's casual bigotry, always couched in terms of logical analysis or polite observation, was that his tear ducts were still overreacting. Sherlock had wept easily and openly as a child, and the practice had stuck with him well into adulthood. He had, however, had opportunity to weaponize it against his father, to whom his tears were a source of visceral and immediate discomfort. Perhaps it would hasten his departure. And speaking of which...

“Should I expect an eviction notice prepared by your team of solicitors, or is this little visit meant to serve as such?” he drawled, then sniffed wetly and wiped his nose with a bare, hairy forearm. He made certain to give dear old da a good look at the tattoos (and the telltale scabs) on his arm as he did so.

Incredibly, the old man managed to suppress any visible reaction to his display, and instead intoned, “It has come to my understanding that this...incident...was spurred by the machinations of a certain of your former associates, which resulted in a considerable amount of duress and possibly coercion. In that light, and after careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that it does not constitute a breach of the contract we arrived at after your initial recovery. I have been assured that your recovery shall continue, and that your associate will not interfere further.”

Sherlock swallowed, nonplussed, then glanced up sharply.

“What have you done?”

His father frowned down at him.

“Nothing you need concern yourself with.”

Sherlock staggered to his feet, leaning on the railing of the stairs, but did not advance or retreat.

“Murdering ailing junkies in their hospital beds now, are we? Or merely offering a _sizable donation_ towards their disappearance into the night to predictably off themselves, saving you the trouble?”

There was no response, which was just as well, since Sherlock hadn't done with him yet. He leaned forward, hoping he looked as much a horror as he knew himself to be.

“Can you not accept the fact that your son, _your_ son, is well and truly _fucked_? Have you come to parade your denial and excuses for my behavior before me, subjecting me to your dull-minded rationalizations for-”

He cut off abruptly as he heard the door latch shift, and Watson chose that moment to return from her errand. He sucked what he had been about to say (to shout, he amended privately) back into his lungs as she walked up with a rather thick envelope full of what he presumed to be the aforementioned paperwork held across her chest like a breastplate to defend against whatever she was interrupting. Sherlock's legs declined to support him further, and he slid unsteadily to reseat himself on the step he had vacated, unable to meet her eyes.

Surprisingly, his father addressed Joan. “Miss Watson, is it your assessment that further inpatient care would be of benefit at this particular juncture?”

She gave him an odd look, and answered, “Are you asking me as a doctor, a sober recovery expert, or for my investigative analysis?”

A thin smile curved thin lips as he replied, “All of these; and yet more so as the only person I have reason to believe can accurately judge my son in regard to this matter, as well as any other circumstance that might arise.”

Joan blinked rapidly a moment, then incongruously turned to look at Sherlock where he goggled at them both and addressed him, instead.

“I'm not a sober companion anymore, and I haven't been for a long time. I don't think there would be much point in going through inpatient rehab again, at least for right now, but that doesn't mean there doesn't need to be a lot more structure around here. Right away. I'm not...I can't do that for both of us, not now. Maybe not ever again. I've contacted my old agency, and arranged for a new sober companion to come here while we sort all of this out. She'll be here in an hour or two, actually.”

Sherlock tried to close his mouth; swallowed hard. She must have arranged for it soon after he'd returned to the brownstone, which he remembered only vaguely now. He shuddered to think of the state he must have been in, and how Joan must have reacted. Had they spoken? Had he said...anything? Shame burned through him like acid, but his father was speaking again before coherent thoughts had a chance to form.

“Miss Watson, I have business to attend to, but I trust you will keep me apprised of the situation?”

Joan frowned, but sighed, “I'll do what I can.”

“Very well. You have my thanks.”

And with that, the old vulture made his way to the door followed by Joan, who shut it behind him and turned the lock. Sherlock heard the car door closing and the engine start up. As it pulled away from the curb he glanced up at Joan, who sighed tiredly, “I could use some tea.”

\- - -

Back downstairs, Sherlock watched Watson put the kettle on and reflected on how of all the places in the brownstone, the kitchen seemed to be the cradle of honesty, quiet revelations, and important negotiations. He noticed that she chose different herbal mixtures for each of them, assigning their cups with deliberation and an accompanying single-use filter stuffed full of medicinals.

“Another of your mother's nostrums? I don't imagine there's a recipe for my particular situation as it currently stands,” he said mildly, attempting to make conversation in the tense atmosphere.

She walked back to the table and set their mugs down to wait for the kettle to boil.

“Actually, there is,” she replied, surprisingly. “I've seen studies that compared the action and safety of Chinese herbal medicine with western medicine on managed withdrawal from heroin, they concluded that Chinese medicine was more effective and had a better safety profile than alpha2 adrenergic agonists. This is probably overkill, but it can't hurt just in case.”

He blinked at that. “I've come to appreciate the efficacy of your teas, Watson, and it occurs to me that herbal methadone is not particularly warranted, considering.”

She just stared at him a moment before replying, “I said it's more _effective_ ; that doesn't mean it's going to get you high, Sherlock.”

He raised his eyebrows, but observed meekly enough, “You've arranged quite a bit of this in advance, then.”

“Yeah,” she retorted in a clipped voice, and stared him down stonily until the kettle gave its warning _squirk_.

She poured the water, and they sat silently while the herbs steeped into their cups. His own was slightly bitter but seemed redolent mostly of ginseng.

“It was the bee stings,” she stated flatly.

“Pardon?”

“The marks you made when you were stinging yourself with bees that day. You said you made them with a _pin_ , to compare hypodermic marks to bee stings. Being stabbed with a pin and the mark from a hypodermic needle look different. There was no reason for that, and I know where your veins are. Were you shooting up with water? Something else? Another _test_ for your sobriety, like in London? You've come up with plenty of more creative ways to hurt yourself, Sherlock.”

He burned with fresh humiliation, his eyes on the floor and quite unable to reply as she continued.

“I can't even say I saw it coming, but things have been off since I came back to the brownstone. I thought it was me, I really did. And a lot happened that made me think that. But it wasn't just me, was it? I mean, look at you,” she indicated his slumped figure with a wave, “everything about you is different, you're not twitching, you're just...still, like someone switched you off. You know what I'm talking about.”

“It's the drugs,” he rasped unwillingly.

“It's one thing to know that, but seeing it just...something else.” He saw her move in the corner of his eye; she had her elbows on the table and sunk her face into her hands.

“I don't know what to do, Sherlock,” she whispered despairingly, and what was left of his heart shattered. “I can't do this, I can't be in charge of anyone right now. I don't know if I can help you.” She looked at him with eyes he flinched away from meeting, and implored, “Remember what you said about friendship? Moving toward the best aspects of one other? Well, this _isn't_ that.”

She picked up her mug and took it to the sink, then leaned with her hands against the counter, speaking with her back to him.

“Get yourself together, Sherlock. Find a reason. Because I really need my friend right now, and sometimes it feels like you're the only one I have left. And I almost lost you; I still could.”

Sherlock stood slowly, realizing he had no promises to make that he couldn't break just as easily; nothing he could say would undo what he'd done. What he still might do. Joan turned around as he approached, and just as she began to frown in confusion, he put his arms around her and pulled her close against his chest. She felt small and fragile in his arms, and he touched his chin gently to the crown of her head with a sigh. She accepted the embrace, heart beating rapidly like a bird's. He wanted to ask after her health again, but he knew he had no right.

“You almost _died_ ,” she mumbled into him.

“I know,” he said quietly. “I-”

He closed his mouth; he had no right to apologize, either. Begging for forgiveness was merely another tool; a lie addicts liked to tell themselves, and others. He had nothing left to say, and so he did what he could to communicate haptically; hoped without hoping that his clumsy gesture could make up for what remained unsaid, or salve the wounds that words had caused between them.

Another knock at the brownstone door intervened.

“She's here,” Joan said, pulling away from him. Sherlock froze, realizing he had done nothing to prepare himself for this moment, or for accepting someone new into his home, his life. _No more time._ And now Joan was gone, and he'd been left alone for the first time since he walked into a tunnel that he didn't come back for days; one he still hadn't entirely escaped. And he could not say for certain whether or not he would go back, even now.

Especially now, after years of effort to become someone else, someone who did not need to abuse substances because he had friends as well as work; become someone who maintained structure and strove to achieve balance in his life through equivalent extremes, if not moderation. The disappointment was even more crushing when all of his efforts had proved to still not be enough, after all. Perhaps nothing ever would be, and that didn't bear thinking about.

Instead, he took as much control over himself as he could muster, and sat down quietly in the chair next to the table. He heard voices in the foyer; Joan and his new sober companion were having a quiet conversation.

“I know I went over this with you on the phone, but he's not the kind of person you can really explain. You'll just have to meet him, I guess. If you're in the house, just assume that he can hear you, and that he probably knows what you're doing. It can be unnerving at first, but...just let me know if you need a break. I'll do what I can.” That was Joan.

An unfamiliar voice replied, “I've been doing this a while, you know. It takes a lot to throw me.”

Joan replied tiredly, “Well, he'll probably figure out whatever it is, and do it as much as possible. He's a button pusher, in every sense of the word. Just don't let it distract you, and don't let _how_ he is fool you into thinking he's more in control than anyone else you've worked with.”

She paused, and the floorboards went silent as she continued. “One other thing. He was using up until last night, then he OD'd on purpose so I could take his kit away.” Sherlock winced; wondered if he was doomed to spend the majority of his life listening to other people having conversations about him. What to _do_ about him. The briefing wasn't done yet, and he knew Joan would pull no punches just because she knew he could hear her. She'd grown accustomed; perhaps the psychological process of acclimation to his eccentricities should be named a syndrome of its own. He didn't just have a disease, he _was_ one.

“He spent the whole night puking and shaking because I brought him up hard. I don't think he had time to hide anything around here, but now that you've seen this place, you know what I meant when I said there could be anything in here. I know you have Narcan and the strips, but keep in mind that he picks pockets; he might not speak for hours, then he'll gladhand you to just prove a point, or for fun.”

“Gladhand?” the unfamiliar voice of his new babysitter queried, and their footsteps resumed.

“That's a pickpocketing move where you steal someone's watch when you shake their hand...sorry, it's not important. It's just, I've been up for the past three days, and I'm really....relieved that you're here. Just...do the best you can.”

“Don't worry about it, Joan. We'll be fine.”

Sherlock saw two sets of feet begin their descent down the stairs to the kitchen, and he kept his gaze on the tabletop, feeling thoroughly dehumanized and rather like some spectacle in a zoo. It was remarkably similar to the way he had felt during his stint in rehab, except at least in that environment he'd been a red herring in a school of less remarkable herrings. Now he was a strung-out fish sitting at a kitchen table, with two women staring at him like he was about to break into song, with a top hat and cane for good measure.

Joan hovered in the doorway, and he couldn't quite stop himself from asking her, “Are you leaving, then?” in a quavering voice. “I understand that you...have a great deal on your plate, as it were.”

She just looked at him with eyes that seemed a thousand years old, and indeed, the few lines in her face seemed carved more deeply than usual. She replied in the same voice she'd been using to discuss him with his sober companion, but her omission of introductions demonstrated her exhaustion to him more clearly than her tone conveyed.

“I'm tired, Sherlock. I'm going to bed.”

And with that, she trudged back up the stairs, presumably to do as she said.

As his eyes followed Watson's shoes back up the staircase, he took stock of the woman in whose charge he had been left with his peripheral vision. About five feet four inches, dark skinned and with hair in thin braids that had, in turn, been pulled back and braided. T-shirt with a button-down thrown over it, jeans and trainers, a large bag slung over one shoulder. She owned at least one cat. He tried to drum up some resentment, a bit of anger, something or anything with which to arm himself, but nothing fit.

Joan's footsteps faded somewhat as he did his best to turn his attention towards the as-yet-nameless woman in his kitchen.

“Hi, Sherlock. I'm Mary.”

His first thought, _I hope I do not disappoint_ , was on his lips before he remembered that his existence was itself the physical manifestation of disappointment; perhaps seasoned with a dash or two of wasted potential and abusive tendencies. In fact, he realized had neither the strength nor the motivation to engage at all, and with that, he sunk his head down into his folded arms and attempted to find his own saturation point for despair.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [[waking up insane-deadboy and the elephantmen](https://youtu.be/D-hPxv9Kz6g)]
> 
> Please learn how you can help save a life at [StopOverdose.org](http://stopoverdose.org/).  
> [An explicitly detailed instructional video on how to use Narcan/naloxone to help save someone who is overdosing on opiates can be found here.](https://youtu.be/U1frPJoWtkw)


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